Victor appoints Joe Cohen as new CEO

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Leading private jet charter marketplace Victor officially announces the appointment of consumer tech leader Joe Cohen as CEO. Cohen is tasked with accelerating Victor’s impressive growth to date, and realising its ambition to scale globally, by building upon its track record for innovation and superior customer experience.

Prior to Victor Cohen co-founded Property.Works, a commercial property marketplace providing transparency and convenience for SME businesses seeking new work space. Before that he was founder-CEO of online ticket marketplace Seatwave, establishing a popular, mainstream model for the buying and selling of tickets to sports, music and cultural events prior to acquisition by Live Nation Entertainment-owned Ticketmaster in 2014. Cohen was also Global COO of Match.com, responsible for the operation and successful technology-driven expansion of several online dating businesses (under the Match.com umbrella) across 43 countries and 18 languages.

Between 2010 and 2017 Cohen held a non-executive board position with Sofar Sounds, another global, marketplace-dynamic business specifically launched to connect performers with fragmented audiences and develop their profile. He has additionally worked in senior roles for Ticketmaster, Virgin and Disney. His deep experience of building major customer-focused technology and marketplace brands will more than inform his remit at Victor.

“A passion for delivering world-class customer experiences through technology has propelled Victor’s success to date and now, buoyed by recent investment, the company has the means to match its ambitions,” Cohen says. “I’m looking forward to elevating product development, and developing a dynamic, values-led culture within the team that, ultimately, allows us to serve the highly fragmented jet charter market with its most seamless and pivotal customer proposition ever.”

Cohen replaces Victor founder Clive Jackson, who launched the business in 2011 and was appointed founder-CEO of investment vehicle Alyssum Group this January. Alyssum Group, whose subsidiary businesses include Victor and aviation flight-planning and services provider RocketRoute, is pursuing a long-term acquisitive strategy as it seeks to create a connected ecosystem for major stakeholders within private aviation.

“Joe is the ideal candidate to lead the next stage of Victor’s journey,” Jackson says. “He has over 20 years’ experience of creating compelling customer offerings in fragmented industries – of growing big tech brands that put customers first and, by making accessibility and acceptability part of their DNA, generate real customer love. Joe also brings great passion and energy to what he does. I’m really looking forward to working alongside another highly-experienced founder-CEO within Alyssum Group.”

Cohen leads an expanding global team of over 115 Victor staff across offices in London, New York, Santa Barbara and mainland Europe. Whilst based at Victor’s HQ in London, the Cleveland, Ohio-born CEO will actively operate on both sides of the Atlantic; particularly focused on developing Victor’s presence in North America, where the business opened new Manhattan headquarters last year. Victor, which made the FT1000 list of Europe’s fastest growing companies for its second consecutive year last month, has seen revenue growth of 726% over a four-year period (to 2016) and 95% year-on-year (Q1 2018 vs 2017).

“With the world’s wealth population increasing, a growing appetite among Millennials for experiential travel and the ongoing shift from jet ownership to charter, there are exciting tailwinds for our category that Victor especially can leverage,” Cohen adds. “By developing Victor’s digital marketplace and supporting our supply base’s transition to online we, and the wider market, stand to deepen customer engagement, lower costs, and further establish private charter as a viable form of 21st century mobility.”

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